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_'9 
PHILOSOPHIC SERIES— No. IL 



ENERGY 



EFFIOIEjN'T AE"D FIIvrAL CAUSE 



JAMES McCOSH, D.D., LL.D., D.L. 

Author of "The Laws of Discursive Thought," "Emotions," etc. 
President of Princeton College 



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V (■ I, ■ ■ 22 188S 



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NEW YORK 

CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 

1883 



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Copyright, 1883, by 
CHARLES SCKIBNEKS SONS 



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1 

^ TABLE OF CONTENTS. 



PACK 

Introduction, 1 



SECTION I. 
Physical Causation, . .3 

SECTION II. 
Psychical Causation, .19 

SECTION III. 
Causation Subjective, 31 

SECTION IV. 
Various Sorts of Causes, 35 

SECTION V. 
Final Cause, 45 



ENERGY. 

EFFICIENT AND FINAL CAUSE. 



INTKODUCTION. 



The principle of cause and effect is involved in most of 
the processes by which we discover truth. True, there are 
verities which are perceived by intuition, that is, in looking 
upon the objects, such as that I exist and that material 
things exist. But it is only a small portion of our knowl- 
edge that is obtained by primary and direct inspection. 
In the case of other and derivative truths causation is im- 
plied, if not in the whole, at least in the greater number 
of them. 

The principle has a place in the great body of our con- 
victions as to the past. I do not see that it has any part 
in memory which is instinctive, but it has in all those 
which we reach by a process. Thus, we believe that there 
has been a battle at a certain place, a flood at a particular 
spot on a river, a fire in a dwelling, because we discover 
effects, which we argue imply a cause. Thus, we argue 
that certain strata in the earth's surface are the deposits of 
an ancient ocean, and that other portions have been thrown 
up by a volcano. Even in regard to events which we be- 
lieve on human testimony, we assume that the actors have 
been swayed by the same motives as men now are. 

It will be allowed more readily that our reasonable ex- 



2 INTEODUCTION. 

pectations as to the future depend so far on this principle. 
We argue, whether we are conscious of it or not, that the 
causes now operating in physical nature and in men's 
minds will act in the future as in the past ; that these col- 
leges and schools will continue to produce a high mental 
cultivation ; that these improved modes of agriculture will 
produce a richer crop, and that the abuses in certain old 
countries will, in the end, produce a revolution like those 
of France and America. 

The principle is involved in the common arguments for 
the existence of God. True, those who believe with 
Schleiermacher that God is perceived by direct intuition 
do not need this premise. But the proofs commonly urged, 
for example, that from the adaptation of one thing to 
another to accomplish a good end, and that from the high 
ideas in the mind of the infinite the perfect proceed, as has 
been shown by Kant, on the principle of causation ; these 
collocations and aspirations imply a designing mind to 
produce them. 

Causation is thus one of the bonds which connect the 
present with the past and the future, and the whole with 
God as the Great First Cause. If this be so, it is surely de- 
sirable, it is indeed of vast importance, to have the nature of 
cause and our belief in it accurately unfolded, and brought 
into consistency with modern science. David Hume, in 
establishing his philosophical scepticism, labored with all 
his might to loosen the causal connection. In the defence 
of truth this principle comes next in order to that of the 
Criteria of Truth. 



SECTION I. 

PHYSICAL CAUSATION. 

The subject will be made clearer by carefully distinguisli- 
ing Causation Objective and Subjective: that is causation 
in itself whether we observe it or no (a spark will kindle 
gunpowder without our taking notice of it), and the princi- 
ple in the mind wdiich leads us believe in it. 

I am not singular in holding that the whole subject of 
Cause has become confused in the minds of men, especially 
educated men, and that the time has come for reconsidering 
it in the light which recent investigation furnishes. In our 
day two or three doctrines have been propounded and, I 
believe, demonstrated, which require us to review and re- 
vise the doctrine of causation, more especially in its rela- 
tion to Force, Energy, and Power. 



Theee is a duality or plurality in Causation, that 
is, there are two or more acting bodies in all physical 
causes. There were thinkers who had a glimpse of that 
doctrine from an old date. Aristotle spoke of a avvairiov 
which Sir W. Hamilton translates Concause.* But this 
truth was fir^t clearly enunciated by Mr. J. S. Mill {Logic, 
Book IV., Chap. V.). " The statement of the cause is in- 
complete unless in some shape or other we introduce all 
the conditions. A man takes mercury, goes out of doors, 

' Sextus Empiricus speaks, III. 15, of ffwairtov, awtpyiv, avveKTiKa, all 
pointing to joint action. 



4 PHYSICAL CAUSATION. 

and catches cold. "We say, perhaps, that the cause of his 
taldng cold was the exposure to the air. It is clear, how- 
ever, that his having taken mercury may have been a 
necessary condition of his catching cold ; and though it 
might consist with usage to say that the cause of his attack 
was exposure to the air, to be accurate we ought to say 
that the cause was exposure to the air while under the ef- 
fect of mercury." 

The doctrine had occurred to me before I read Mr. 
Mill's " Logic ; " but as he published it first, I do not claim 
any credit in it. As approaching it, however, from a 
somewhat different direction, I believe I can make it more 
explicit and comprehensive. In all physical action there 
are two or more bodies, molecular or molar ; at the present 
stage of science I ought to add that the body may be the 
ether in which the undulations of light take place. 'Now 
the cause — by which I mean that which invariably has 
produced the effect, and will invariably produce it — con- 
sists in the mutual action of two or more bodies ; that is, 
their action on each other. Tlius, in the case adduced by 
Mr. Mil], the true cause of the effect, the cold, was not the 
air alone or the body alone, but the air and the body un- 
der mercury. Without the concurrence, or rather the 
joint action of the two, the effect would not have been 
produced. It is the same in all other cases. A ball at 
rest is struck by a ball in motion ; the one ball is made i • > 
move, the other has its motion stayed ; the cause consists 
of the two balls in a certain state, and the effect the balls 
in another state. A picture-frame falls from a wall and 
breaks a jar standing on a table below ; we say that the 
frame, or rather the fall of the frame, was the cause of 
the fracture of the jar. But the true cause, that which 
forever will produce the same effect, is the frame falling 
with a certain momentum and the brittleness of the jar. 



PLURALITY IN CAUSE AND EFFECT. 5 

Had the frame come clown with less violence, or the jar 
been stronger, there might have been no breakage. In 
most cases of action a considerable number, in some a 
vast number and variety of agents combine to produce 
the result. Take the sprouting of a flower in spring : in 
the cause there are the increased heat and light of the sun, 
the state of the plant in the earth, and the state of the soil. 
Without the concurrence of all these the effect would not 
be produced. 

II. 

Secondly, there is a duality or plurality in the 
EFFECT. This is a further truth which Mr. Mill has not 
expounded, but which occurred to me as I was thinking 
out the doctrine which Mr. Mill preceded me in unfolding. 
It follows from Mr. Mill's doctrine when it is proper! v un- 
derstood, and seems to me to be quite as certain, and it is 
fully more important and of wider range in its applications. 
Thus, in Mr. Mill's illustration the cause was the state of 
the atmosphere and the body as affected by mercury ; the 
effect was the same atmosphere insensibly changed in 
temperature, and the body under a cold. In the second 
case the true cause consisted of the two balls, one in mo- 
tion striking the other at rest ; the effect (which would be 
forever produced by the same cause) the ball which was 
at rest moving and the ball which was in motion at rest. 
In the third case the cause was the picture-frame with a 
certain momentum striking a jar of a certain structure ; 
the effect was the frame losing part of its momentum and 
the jar broken. In the case of the plant germinating 
there must have been in the effect changes — it may be in- 
capable of measurement — in all the agents acting as the 
causes in the sun's heat and light absorbed in the earth 
and in the plant sprouting. 



6 PHYSICAL CAUSATIOW. 

Taking these views with ns, it may be of great use to 
have appropriate and definite phrases to express them. 
The word Cause, that which invariably produces tlie effect, 
should be reserved for the combination of agencies pro- 
ducing the result. The cause of the man's taking cold is 
not merely the cold atmosphere or his frame being affected 
by mercury, but in the two acting on each other. The 
word Effect should in like manner be applied to the com- 
bined result, and comprises the change in the air as well 
as the colded affection of the body. In the other illustra- 
tive cases it implies the movement of the one ball and the 
staying of the other ; the loss of momentum in the picture- 
frame as well as the breaking of the jar; and the change 
in the rays of heat and light coming from the sun as well 
as the germinating of the plant. 

As causes are dual or plural, it is proper to have phrases 
to express the parts. The law is often stated that the 
same cause always produces the same effect in the same 
circumstances. But in order to clearness and accuracy it 
is essential to specify w^hat are the circumstances ; it is in 
fact necessary to put them into the cause, as without them 
the effect would not follow. In order to the germinating 
of the flower there is not only the state of the plant and 
soil, but the additional heat of the sun. All the acting 
parts may be called agents or agencies, without specifying 
what they are. They are bodies in a certain state acting 
on other bodies. 

Yery often one of these agents is more important in it- 
self, or in our estimation, or for our present purpose, than 
the others ; this is designated pre-eminently the cause, and 
little or no evil may arise from this provided always that 
it be understood that this agent needs one or more co- 
operating agents which are parts of the full cause. If it 
be said that the cold air was the cause of the man beino; 



CAUSE AND CONDITION. 7 

colded, it was because his body was disposed toward such 
an issue by mercury. It is not easy, or perhaps even pos- 
sible, to lay down a rule as to which of the agents should 
be called the special, the main, or the prominent cause, 
for the cause consists in the mutual action of the whole. 
When man is working he often calls in one agent to pro- 
duce an intended effect. If he wishes to kindle a heap of 
straw, the agent he attends to is the fire he applies ; if he 
wishes a good crop from his ground, he looks to the manure ; 
if he wishes to be cured of a disease, he selects his medi- 
cine ; though in all such cases there is need of co-operation 
in the state of the straw, or of the ground, or of his bodily 
frame. In nature there is often one agent that is particu- 
larly potent. When a tree is struck by lightning it is the 
electricity that is specially noticed, though the structure of 
the tree had also to do with the effect produced. 

Fixing on the agent that is most prominent in itself or 
in our eyes as the cause or special force, then the co-opera- 
ting agent may be called the Occasion. This phrase is 
specially applied to circumstances which cast up to call forth 
a power into exercise, or to work along with causes steadily 
operating. Thus, that ill-constructed house fell on the oc- 
casion of a storm arising. I w'as prompted to write a letter 
to a friend by my affection ; but the occasion was his suffer- 
ing a severe loss ; the two actually called forth the letter. 
Malebranche was the philosopher wdio brought the phrase 
" occasional cause " into general use. He represented the 
will of God as the true cause of all creative action, but the 
volition of man might be the occasion of the forthputting 
of the Divine Power. Thus, when I move my arm the 
true cause is the Divine Will, but my purpose is the occa- 
sional cause. In such a case we may allowably give a 
prominence to the Divine Power, but it should be noticed 
that while one of the agents is the important one, the 



8 PHYSICAL CAUSATIO]Sr. 

other or others, the action of the brain and nerves, are 
necessary to the production of the precise consequence, 
which will not follow without the co-operation. 

We are thus enabled to give a philosophical explanation 
of what is meant, or rather what should be meant, by Con- 
dition^ a phrase so often used vaguely and illegitimately 
in the present day in its application to physical operation. 
In order to be rid of an agent or to drive it into a corner, 
it is said that it is simply a condition. In order to the pro- 
duction of a given effect, a certain agent is fixed on as pro- 
ducing an end, the other or others are represented as simply 
conditions. As proving design we show that animals with 
a stomach for digesting flesh have also claws and strong 
muscles to catch and hold their prey. But an attempt is 
made to do away with the force of the argument by urging 
that these adjuncts are merely the conditions of the ma- 
chine working. But properly understood the argument 
lies in the circumstance that the co-operating conditions 
have met. The presence of strings in a harp is a condition 
of it producing music, but the evidence of design is in the 
presence and combination of the necessary strings. 

We may legitimately and conveniently use such phrases 
provided we understand them oin-selves and let our readers 
or hearers understand what we mean by them. But it 
should be distinctly explained that all the agents acting, 
whether circumstances, occasions, or conditions, constitute 
the cause without which the effect would not follow. 

It is needful to make like explanations and come to the 
same understanding as to the Effect. In all cases of physi- 
cal action the effect is also dual or plural ; it consists of 
two or more agents changed — I hope to show the same 
agents as are in the cause. These constitute what has 
been, and what will always be, produced by the cause. 
But it often happens that a special end is contemplated 



CONDITIONS AND INCIDENTS. 9 

when we set an agent or agencies aworking ; and when 
this is effected it is regarded as the proper or the only 
effect. But there may be other consequences Nvhich we 
did not consider or look for, or which we regard as minor 
or irrelevant ones. We wish for a shower to refresh the 
ground ; as it falls it accomplishes that end, but it may also 
so swell a stream that it works destruction as it overflow's 
its banks. A new machine is invented which produces a 
greater amount of work, but it throws a number of people, 
who followed the old methods, out of employment. It is 
desirable to have a phrase to denote these secondary effects, 
as they are regarded ; and they may be described as Con- 
comitants, or more expressly as Incidents or Incidentals. 
Perhaps some would call them Accidents, and they may 
be so called as they were not intended, as when one fires 
an overcharged gun and is wounded by its striking back- 
ward. But these accidents are quite as much caused by 
the agents as the others that were expected. In all cases 
the effect properly understood consists of the whole of the 
agents that have been acting put in a new state. Any one 
who sets new agencies agoing, say starting a new trade or 
passing a new law, is bound to look not merely to one but 
all the consequences that nmst follow. 



III. 

The Conservation of Energy.— It has long been known 
and acknowledged that the sum of matter in the cosmos is 
always one and the same. We burn a piece of paper and 
it disappears from our view, but it is not annihilated. 
One portion of the matter has gone down in ashes, the 
other has gone up in smoke, and it is conceivable we might 
bring the scattered particles together, and they would be- 
come the original paper. 



10 PHYSICAL cAusATio:sr. 

Imperious Cesar dead and turned to clay- 
Might stop a hole to keep the wind away. 

It has been proven in our day that the same is true of 
the energy of matter. This doctrine was anticipated by 
several philosophic physicists/ but was established in our 
day by Mayer, by Joule, by Grove, and others. Accord- . 
ing to it, the sum of energy potential and actual capable of 
being brought into operation or in operation, is always one 
and the same. It cannot be increased and it cannot be 
diminished by any human, indeed, any mundane agency. 
The doctrine is thus stated by Clerk Maxwell : " The total 
energy of any body or system of bodies can neither be in- 
creased nor diminished by any mutual action of these 
bodies, though it may be transformed into any one of the 
forms of which energy is susceptible." The amount of 
energy is constant if unaffected by any agent external to 
itself. If acted on from without the energy will bo in- 
creased by what has been communicated. If it acts on 
bodies without, the energy will be diminished by the work 
done. When any portion leaves one body it passes into 
another. If two balls strike each other, they have the same 
amount of energy before they strike and after they strike, 
though the energy may be decreased in one and increased 
to the same extent in the other. When the energy dis- 

1 It has been shown (Thomson and Tait's Natural Philosophy, § 269) 
that Newton had seized the principle which leads to the doctrine, "Work 
done on any system of bodies has its equivalent in the form of work 
done against friction, molecular forces or gravity if there be no accelera- 
tion ; but if there be acceleration part of the work is expended in over- 
coming resistance to acceleration, and the additional kinetic energy de- 
veloped is equivalent to the work so spent." It can be shown, I think, 
that Leibnitz also approached the doctrine from another side. In his 
letters to M. L'Hospital He speaks of "I'egalite de la cause et de I'ef- 
fect," and says, "la force se conserve toujours." This points to the 
principle. Mayer, who did as much as any other man to establish the 
doctrine, also speaks of the effect being equal to the cause. 



CORRELATION OF FORCES. 11 

appears in one form, say in mechanical force moving a 
mass, it appears in anotlier, say in heat, which is molecu- 
lar motion. 

It is an integrant part of this doctrine that the physical 
forces are all correlated, a truth beautifully expounded by 
Grove in his " Correlation of the Physical Forces." The 
energy may take various forms — say the purely mechanical, 
the chemical, the electric, the magnetic — perhaps also the 
gravitative, which may be a somewhat weak form of the 
correlated forces. These forms are capable of being trans- 
mitted into each other, and this in definite quantity : so 
much mechanical force into so nmch chemical force, which 
chemical force may be reconverted into the mechanical. 
This shows the whole physical forces of our world to be 
correlated and capable of being exchanged for one another, 
the sum of energy remaining the same. 

It may not be easy to show the full relation between 
these three doctrines, which I hold to be severally estab- 
lished. But there is no inconsistency between them. 
Perhaps the full doctrine may be so stated as to embrace 
all the three and make them aspects of one grand truth. 
Our world may, as the Pythagoreans supposed, be like a 
closed globe with an incalculably large but definite number 
of bodies in it. These act and react upon each other, pro- 
ducing all the activity, all the movement in our world. 
The bodies act on each other, and form a cause. In doing 
so they modify each other and the result is the effect. 
Meanwhile the sum of matter and the sum of energy in 
the bodies continue one and the same, and both are inca- 
pable of increase or diminution. This is at least an in- 
telligible doctrine, and embraces the three truths which 
have been separately stated, and seems in perfect consist- 
ency with all that has been established in regard both to 
the persistence of matter and the persistence of energy. 



12 PHYSICAL CAUSATION. 

I am prepared to stand by and defend the statement 
now made. But when I inquire more particularly into 
the nature of things involved in causation, I feel that I am 
treading darkly and have to guard my steps. Important 
questions are pressed upon me, and I have to speak with- 
out dogmatism. 

"What is the relation of energy to causation ? Enei-gy is 
now the favorite phrase employed to express the activity 
of matter. Energy produces changes. But the change 
must be in something. Physical energy is in the system 
of bodies. By it one body acts on another. There nuist 
be energy of some sort in every system of bodies at all 
times. But the body acts only when another body is 
present. When two or more bodies act on each other we 
have cause. Cause is that which will ever produce the 
same effects. 

Energy and cause must be realities quite as much as 
matter is. Indeed, energy and causation seem to be in the 
very nature of matter. Energy is the power that acts in 
matter. Matter, when it acts, acts causally. The energy 
in the two or more bodies acting as the cause is the power 
in causation. 

Energy is said to be potential and actual or kinetic. 
"When energy is merely potential the bodies are not in evi- 
dent action of any kind. The energy becomes real or ac- 
tual when a body comes into a relation of mutual action 
with another body. There is now causation. 

Some would get rid of energy in physics by affirming 
that the whole phenomenon consists in motion. But there 
is energy, potential energy, when there is no seen motion. 
There is energy in that fragment of marble on my table, 
and this when the body is not moving. Energy is that 
which produces motion. The energy is measured by the 
work it does, that is, by the motion it produces. 



ENEEGY. 13 

The ball A, as it moves bj its energy, strikes the ball 
B, loses its energy, and rests. What is the difference be- 
tween A moving and A at rest ? The answer is that it 
has an energy in the former case, which it has not in the 
latter. It will not regain its energy and be able to move 
till it gets it from some other body. 

It has to be added that the body without the energy has 
the capacity {8vvafx,i<i) of receiving it.' " Energy," says 
Clerk MaxNvell, " cannot exist except in connection with 
matter" (Matter and Motion, p. 165). We have a like 
statement by the authors of " The Unseen Universe" (p. 
106). "Energy is never found separate from matter, 
so that we might define matter as the seat or vehicle of 
energy — that which is essential to the existence of the 
known forms of energy, without which, therefore, there 
could be no transformation of energy and therefore no 
life such as we now know it." It is commonly said that 
the energy is in the body. Sometimes the body has more 
and sometimes less of this energy. The stone taken to 
the top of a tower has energy which it loses when it falls 
to the foot. The spring has more energy because of en- 
ergy expended in bending it. But the body has the ca- 
pacity all the while to receive energy. Amid all changes 
the body continues with its capacity. 

Let us now look at bodies acting according to the prin- 
ciples laid dowm. Without attempting to explain their 

' Physicists have taken their phraseology from Aristotle, but have 
changed it. I am not sure whether it would not have been better had 
they adhered to it more closely. He has a Swauis, a capacity, and an 
fi^fp-yeia, or a power in actual exercise. This is very much the modern 
distinction between potential and actual energy. Between these two 
he had ei/rsAe'xeio, or readiness for action, a phrase which his commen- 
tators have had a difficulty in comprehending. It might have an ap- 
propriate meaning if applied to the two bodies brought into such a re- 
lation that they are ready to act. 



14 PHYSICAL CAUSATION. 

exact nature or to enumerate them, let lis designate the 
physical agencies operating in our world by the letters of 
the alphabet, and view them acting. A ball at rest is 
struck by a ball in motion. Let us call the ball at rest A 
and the ball in motion B. The two constitute the cause 
which is, 

The cause AB. 

As they act the effect follows : A moves while B's motion 
is stayed, and as the effect we have bodies changed. 

The effect A\B'. 
But in its motion A strikes C, and B is struck by D, and 
we have 

Two Cmises A'C and B'D, 
and the 

Double effect A^C and B=D'. 

But these agents come to act on other agents, E, F, G, H, 
and we have a 

Complex result, A=E, C=F, B'G, D=H. 

On the supposition that these agencies are in a closed 
ball and act on each other and on nothing else, the sum of 
energy would be one and the same, while each body might 
be gaining or losing energy, one or both. 

In the first action of A B, A gains energy from B and 
moves, while B loses what energy it gives and is stayed. 
But A going through the air and over a surface loses the 
energy it gained, imparting it to the air and surface, and 
comes to rest ; and B is struck by D and gets the energy 
it has lost and moves. There is thus a continual action 
kept up among the bodies. The energy in each body 
varies, it may be from moment to moment, but the amount 
among all the bodies continues the same. Certain impor- 
tant consequences follow. 

1. We see that the effects come to act as causes. Thus 
if we represent the cause as A B and the effect as A' B', 



GENERAL RESULTS. 15 

we see that each of the agencies A' and B' is ready to act 
always when combined with some other agency, such as 
C and D. These last acting as causes become effects which 
may again become causes in combination with other or the 
same things. The conservation of energy thus keeps the 
world the same through ages, while these constant changes 
give it its activity ; the one as it were constituting an un- 
changing ocean, the other the tides that agitate it. It is 
thus, as the Eleatics held, that everything is fixed and im- 
mutable, but equally true, as Heraclitus and the (f>i\6ao^oi 
piovra taught, that everything is becoming. 

2. We see what is the inertia of body. ISTewton's First 
Law of Motion follows from the principles we have laid 
down. A body at rest will continue at rest forever unless 
it is acted on by some other body ; a body in motion will 
continue in motion in the same straight line unless stayed 
or deflected by some other body. All this is a corollary 
from the principle that causal action is the action of two 
or more bodies, and that a body will not act unless acted 
on by some other body. 

3. "We see the nature of the law of action and reaction. 
A body will not act unless there is some other body acting 
on it. Under this view matter is passive. It acts only so 
far as it is acted on. In another sense it is active. One 
body acts on another body ; thus two bodies are A and B, 
and A and B are both changed. A at rest moves and B is 
stayed. What B loses in being stayed A gains and moves. 
This gives us Newton's Third Law of Motion, that Action 
is always equal to and the opposite of Reaction. B gives 
what it loses to A, but the sum of energy of the two is the 
same after action as before action. It follows that the 
energy given to A is equal to that lost by B. 

4. It has been disputed whether the cause and its effect 
are contemporaneous or successive. The difference of 



16 PHYSICAL CAUSATION. 

opinion springs from confused notions as to tlie nature of 
causation. In all causes there are at least two bodies and 
mutual action, both action and reaction, and these take 
place at the same time. When one ball strikes another, 
when oxygen combines with hydrogen, the action on the 
part of both bodies is simultaneous. But in causation 
proper the effect comes after the cause ; it is the produc- 
tion of the cause. The gain of energy by the one ball and 
the loss of it by the other is the consequence of the simul- 
taneous action. The water is the product of the chemical 
union of the two elements. 

5. It is sometimes stated that the same effect may be 
produced by different causes. This is not true, or it is 
true, according as we understand it. A jar may be broken 
by a picture falling on it, but it may also be broken by a 
stone flung at it. The breaking of the jar may thus be 
produced by two different processes. But in both cases the 
breaking of the jar is only part of the effect. The full 
effect in the one case was the jar broken and the picture 
stayed ; in the other, the jar broken with the stone stayed, 

6. It is often said that great effects follow from small 
causes. A cow kicks a kerosene-lamp, and first the shed 
is ignited and then the half of a great city is burned. The 
British Government denies Colonial America a compara- 
tively small claim ; and a revolution breaks forth which 
separates Great Britain and the United States forever. 
But it is not quite correct, it is not the full truth, to say 
that one cause did all this. In all such cases there is a 
co-operation and succession of various causes. T]ie fire is 
carried on by there being all around infiammable materials 
to propagate it, and the separation of the countries was 
really produced by a widespread discontent. In like man- 
ner a mighty agency may often issue in a very insignifi- 
cant effect, because there are no conspiring powers. Three 



GENEllAL EESULTS. 17 

very important pliilosopliical doctrines seem to be tlms 
established, 

7. In physical cature (and I speak at present of no other) 
the eifect consists of the bodies which have combined to 
form the cause being put in a new state. When the cause is 
A B, the effect is A' B'. The cause may be more complex, 
A, B, C, D, E, F, and all the bodies are modified and appear 
in this modified form in the effect, A' B" C D' E" F\ Thus 
all action is a kind of evolution or development, a favorite 
doctrine of the theosophists of the East, who draw all mun- 
dane things out of other mundane things, and in the last 
resort all things from God. This doctrine is commonly ap- 
prehended in a mystical way which favors pantheism, but 
it contains important truth, which can and should be 
separated fi'om the error with which it has been associated. 
It is not that the effect emanates or grows out from the 
cause, but it is that the effect consists in the bodies con- 
stituting the cause being put in a new state or form. 

8. It is wrong to represent, with Hume, the relation of 
cause and effect as being mainly or essentially that of in- 
variable antecedence and consequence. Most people have 
felt this doctrine to be meagre and unsatisfactory, without 
being able to correct it by supplying the felt deficiency. It 
is not the invariable sequence which constitutes causation ; 
there must be something in causation which produces the 
invariable succession, otherwise, why should the sequence 
be so invariable ? The certainty in the succession is pro- 
duced by the power acting in the causes. Causation is 
thus seen to be in the very nature of the bodies acting as 
the causes. 

9. We see and can explain what is meant by the con- 
tinuity of nature which was noticed by observers from an 
early date, and which has been speculated on by many 
profound thinkers such as Leibnitz. When- we look care- 



18 PHYSICAL CAUSATIOINT. 

fully into the operation of the material world we discover 
that there is no break in its successive actings. True, there 
is often no causal connection between one state of things 
and another going immediately before, between, for ex- 
ample, night and day, which do not produce each other 
while they are invariable antecedents and consequents. But 
when we go behind the more obvious appearances, we find 
that each is produced by antecedent causes ; the day by 
the shining of the sun and the night by his withdrawal. 
If we trace any occurrence backward we find it preceded 
by a series of antecedents, and if we go on with it M^e have 
connected consequents. Causation is a bundle of twisted 
chains each of which follows its own course, but which are 
all joined in a connected machine. This it is which at the 
bottom produces the continuity of nature, which, however, 
is always gathering adjuncts to enable it to proceed. 

10. Among these scattering forces there is need of a 
regulating power to produce order and beneficence. With- 
out this the powers might work irregularly and injuriously, 
and bring forth only evil agents, such as flaming meteors 
and burning worlds, pestiferous creatures devouring one 
another, as gnats, serpents, wild beasts, arresting all forms 
of beauty and means of happiness, and yet incapable of 
annihilation. We find instead millions of agencies com- 
bining to accomplish good and benign ends. Take the ear. 
A sister utters a word, a vibration is started, it reaches our 
ear, is collected by the outer surface and knocks on the 
tympanum, is propagated into the middle ear, whence it 
sets in motion the hammer, the anvil, and the stirrup, 
thence it penetrates into the inner ear, where it vibrates 
through a liquid, affects the thousand and more organs of 
corti, is sent round the semicircular canals into the cochlea, 
and along the auditory nerve into the brain ; the silence is 
broken, and we are cheered by a voice of love. 



SECTION II. 

PSYCHICAL CAUSATION. 

I HAVE spoken of causation in physical nature. I am 
now to speak of it in psychical action. 

The conservation of energy may be regarded as an es- 
tablished doctrine. Savans do indeed continue to assert 
that some of the most eminent among themselves do not 
understand it, or have not expressed it properly, or have 
illegitimately applied it. But it is universally admitted 
that the doctrine is a true and all-important one. 

But let us properly understand and explain it, and keep 
it within its proper limits. It will be admitted by all at 
once that we are not entitled to affirm that the law extends 
beyond our cosmos or knowable universe. For anything 
we know there may be other worlds beyond ours, and we 
have no right to say that in these worlds there is only a 
definite amount of energy which cannot be increased or 
diminished. God may, or may not, be creating suns or 
earths or living beings beyond our ken, and altogether be- 
yond our science. The doctrine of the conservation of en- 
ergy, as I understand, holds only on the supposition that our 
cosmos is like a closed globe. It is conceivable that our 
world may not be so closed in ; that the dissipated heat 
which is passing into space may travel into other worlds 
and influence them without our being able to notice it. 

This restriction of the doctrine is so obvious that it is 
scarcely worth noticing it. But there are other limitations 
which it is of vast moment to bring into prominence, as 
they are being overlooked by some of our scientific men. 
There is clear evidence that there are other potences or 



20 PSYCHICAL CAUSATIOlSr. 

powers in nature liesides tlie meclianical or physical forces. 
It is not proven that the doctrine of tlie conservation of 
energy applies to these. 

Take Life. So far as I understand him, Herbert Spen- 
cer seems inclined to hold that the doctrine applies to all 
the powers in the world, even to the vital and mental ; in- 
deed, he seems incapable of distinguishing between nerve 
force and mental force. But he brings no proof that phy- 
sical force and psychical force can be transmuted into each 
other. The language of most of our scientific speculatoi'S 
is hesitating. Huxley and Tyndall resolutely maintain 
that there is no proof that living beings can proceed from 
non-living. Darwin calls in three or four live germs, 
which he ascribes to God, before he can account for the 
development of vegetable and animal life. I have ob- 
served that those who reject a separate life or vital force 
are obliged to bring it in under another form. Thus Dar- 
win calls in a pangenesis pervading organic nature, and 
Spencer has physiological units which play an important 
part in generation and heredity, and these are certainly 
vital forces. Then the arguments and experiments of 
Beale have to be met, and they have not yet been met by 
those who would deny the existence of a vital potency of 
some kind different from mechanical force. 

But there are other agents in our world more clearly 
distinguished from the physical forces than the vital pow- 
ers are. I refer to the psychical or mental ; to those of 
which we are conscious, which in fact we know immedi- 
ately ; such as our sense perceptions, our memories, our 
judgments, our reasonings, our desires, our emotions, our 
resolves. These we know as directly and clearly as we 
know the affections of body, such as extension and resist- 
ance, and we have quite as good evidence of the existence 
of the one as of the other. Are these mental powers to be 



DIFFERENT FROM PHYSICAL. 21 

included in the physical forces which can neither be in- 
creased nor diminished ? Can the j^hysical forces be trans- 
muted into the mental, say the mechanical, or the chemical 
into thoughts, inclinations, and volitions? Nearly every 
scientific man in the present day admits, nay, maintains, 
that there is no proof of this. Many affirm that they 
cannot even conceive it to be so. Tyndall, no doubt, in 
his Belfast address hastened on to a high vaporous gen- 
eralization, and declared that it looked as if all things 
could be brought under the potency of matter; in the 
mean time declaring, however, that he could not conceive 
how matter could affect mind, or mind matter. Mr. Fiske 
talks of our now needing to assume only one universal as- 
sumption, " the principle of continuity, the uniformity of 
nature, the persistence of force, or the law of causation ;" 
but then he is obliged to add that " in no scientific sense is 
thought the product of molecular movement, and that the 
progress of modern discovery (correlation), so far from 
bridging over the chasm between mind and matter, tends 
rather to exhibit the distinction between them as abso- 
lute." The contradiction is here evident, and has been 
pointed out by scientific men ; but I need not dwell upon 
it, my object being simply to show that thoughts and men- 
tal affections have not yet been reduced to physical forces. 
ISTo doubt mind and body do so far affect each other. 
If a person is told that his dearest friend has died sud- 
denly, his pulse will be apt to rise. Prof. Barker attaches 
a great importance to an experiment of a person first read- 
ing easy English, when his pulse was not affected, then 
reading Greek, when it rose several degrees. Such cases, 
and they might be multiplied indefinitely, show that men- 
tal thoughts and feelings do affect the brain-action, but 
they do not show that they add to or diminish the physical 
forces in the brain, or that the mental feeling or thought 



22 PSYCHICAL CAUSATION. 

has been transmuted into a movement of the pulse. A man 
standing by a stream pushes a big stone in the water aside 
and the stream flows a little more rapidly for a minute or 
two ; but he has not thereby added to the quantity of 
water. Just as little does mental action, reasoning or feel- 
ing, add to or diminish the amount of physical force in the 
cerebro-spinal mass. 

There is no evidence, but the very opposite, that our 
mental actions are identical or correlative with bodily mo- 
tions or activities of any kind. Take as example, the dis- 
coveries of science, the reasonings of mathematicians, the 
visions of poets, the penetration of such philosophers as 
Aristotle, the ardor of the patriot, the beatific vision of the 
Christian, the sacrifices made by the poor for honor and 
lionesty's sake. What savant will estimate for us in quan- 
titative expressions of physics or chemistry, the depth of 
affection in the mother's bosom when she incurs death her- 
self to save her son, or the height of genius reached by 
Shakespeare when he conceived Han] let or Lady Macbeth ? 
There is no one proper quality of matter, such as the oc- 
cupation of space, or resistance, or elasticity, that can be 
predicated of thoughts or affections. There is no one 
quality of mind, such as perception, thought, reasoning, or 
love, that can be applied to this table or that chair. The 
instrument has not yet been invented that can weigh or 
measure our intellectual or voluntary operations. When a 
tree dies it carries into the ground not only the particles of 
matter which composed it, but the forces in the tree to add 
to the forces in the ground. It is the same with the body 
of brute or of man when it is buried, it carries with it 
into the grave all the physical forces ; but were there any 
new physical forces added to the earth when Plato, Milton, 
Bacon, or Newton died ? 

It thus appears that in the very midst of the physical 



CAUSE AXD EFFECT IN MIND. 23 

forces find their correlations there may be other operations, 
mental or spiritual, and against this science has and can 
have nothing to say. I mean to refer to these farther on 
in the paper. 

It is generally believed and acknowledged that there is 
cause and effect in mind as well as in body. In the one 
as in the other, we expect the same antecedents to be fol- 
lowed by the same consequents. When we wish to secure in 
ourselves or others, say in the young, a certain disposition or 
habit of patience and perseverance, we set agoing a train- 
ing or discipline fitted to produce the result. When we 
are anxious to gain the good will of our neighbors, we ad- 
dress the motives most likely to sway them. The orator 
seeks io convince and move to action by arguments and 
considerations likely to influence his audience. In knowing 
a man's propensities, we can at times predict the part he will 
take in certain circumstances, and so far as we cannot do 
this fully, or accurately, it is simply because we are not 
fully acquainted with all the elements in his character ; just 
as in physical nature we often cannot foresee the events 
that are to occur, because the powers operating are so 
numerous and complicated. There are some men of whom 
we are sure that they will not do a mean act. In many 
cases we can determine what a man's springs of action are 
by his acts ; we are sure he is swayed by passion or malig- 
nity, by honor or by charity. 

It is clear that there is Power in the mind— I use the 
word power, leaving the phrase energy to be applied by 
the physicists to the action of body. All writers who have 
had occasion to refer to the operations of the mind, have 
spoken of its powers or faculties, classifying them in va- 
rious ways, as into the Gnoctic or Gnostic and the Crea- 
tive with Aristotle, translated into Latin the Cognitive or 
Motive, or the Understanding and the Will, the Intellect 



24 PSYCHICAL CAUSATION". 

and the Feelings ; and tliej have spoken severally of the 
Senses, the Memory, the Imagination, the Reason, the 
Conscience, the Emotions, and Volitions. They have re- 
garded all of these as having an influence, and capable of 
producing an effect. 

It is not easy to determine pi'ecisely the nature of men- 
tal effectuation. We are not able to measure psychical as 
we do physical energy, in foot pounds. It might indeed be 
argued that, as being immediately conscious of it, we do, 
m fact, know as nmch in a general way of mental as we 
do of bodily production ; but we are not able to put it in 
quantitative form. 

This power manifests itself in two ways. There is the 
power of the Mind over the Body, M'ith the corresponding 
capacity of the Body to produce an impression on the 
Mind. For upwards of 2,000 years, philosophers held, 
generally, by the principle of Empedocles, the Sicilian 
philosopher, that like can only influence like, and they 
denied that mind could influence body, or body mind, 
and this opinion still lingers among metaphysicians. I 
deny the principle that like can only sway like, and I can 
see no difiiculty in allowing that psychical action may pro- 
duce physical action, say action of the nerves, and vice 
versa. It certainly seems to do so. I will to move my arm, 
and there is action in the gray cellular matter of the pe- 
riphery of the brain, which proceeds down the transmis- 
sive white matter to a basal nerve which moves the mus- 
cles and the bones, and the intended effect is produced. 
There seems to be a causal action throughout this process ; 
an action of the mind on the brain, and of the brain on ' 
the nerves. There is a like phenomenon in the feelings 
producing an effect on the organism, as when a ludicrous 
idea leads to laughter, and grief bursts out in tears, and a 
sense of kindness received covers the face with smiles. 



MUTUAL ACTIOJN" OF MIND AND BODY. 25 

Even intellectual exercises seem to have an effect on the 
brain, as exhaustion is felt when they are prolonoed. 

There is also an influence of the body on the mind, as 
when the bodily senses produce a mental perception, say 
of a form or a color, and a healthy organism raises up 
pleasant feelings, or a diseased stomach or liver raises up 
gloomy thoughts. In all these cases there is a power pro- 
ducing certain defined effects. It may be argued that the 
effects follow not directly, but by some agency commonly 
supposed to be unknown. There is a constant inquiry into 
the hoio in the relation between mind and body, usually 
followed by the acknowledgment that it is a mystery. At 
this point it may at once be allowed that in the mutual ac- 
tion of mind and body there are processes unknown to us. 
Iso one will maintain that the physiologist can as yet spe- 
cify all the steps involved in the process by which an ex- 
ternal object reaches the perceiving mind. But suppose he 
is able to do so, it does not appear to me that the mys- 
tery would thereby be diminished. In tracing back the 
nervous and the cerebral action, we come at last to a point 
or line where the body acts on the mind. The only way of 
avoiding this conclusion is by calling in some sort of ter- 
tiuiii quid in the shape say of a plastic medium, which com- 
municates between mind and body. The difficulty is not 
thereby removed, it is not ev^en lessened ; for, if it is of the 
nature of either body or mind, we have still to show how 
it acts on mind if it is body, and how it acts on body if it 
is jnind. If it is of the nature, neither of body nor mind, 
it is an unwarranted hypothesis, explaining nothing, and 
multiplying the difficulties, for we have now to explain how 
in one case body acts on the medium, and the medium on 
mind, and how in the other case mind acts on the medium 
and the medium on body. The simplest, and on the whole 
the most reasonable supposition, is that mind has a potency 



26 PSYCHICAL CAUSATION. 

whereby it acts on body, and body a potency whereby it 
acts on mind. Tliis is far more likely than the Male- 
branche's hypothesis of occasional cause, or that of pre-es- 
tablished harmony by Leibnitz. Sooner or later, we may be 
able to determine precisely the nature of the action, that 
is, in what circumstances it acts, how far it extends, and 
how it is limited. This is all we can know about any law 
of nature, and when this is accomplished there is no more 
mystery than in the law of the mutual attraction of mat- 
ter, or in that of chemical affinity. 

But very nice questions are here started, and to these 
we can give little more than negative answers, fitted to re- 
move erroneous impressions. Is there any such relation in 
the mutual action of psychical and physical action as is im- 
plied in the conservation of material energ}- ? When the body 
acts on mind, does the energy in matter go into mind, and 
appear in a new form ? Or when mind acts on bod}^, is 
there new energy entering matter? I answer unhesita- 
tingly that there is no proof of this whatever. On the 
contrary, every thing goes on in the body according to the 
laws or properties of body, and every thing in the mind 
according to the nature of mind. Our volitions and other 
mental acts may give a new direction to the forces in the 
bodies, but they do not add to them or increase them. Our 
will moves the arm which was before at rest, but it only 
calls into activity the potential energy already there, and 
that energy acts according to its nature. The senses make 
known an object to us, but it does not add any new mental 
power, and the object being there, or rather being known 
there, calls forth ideas or feelings according to the mental 
laws of association. In the body every thing proceeds ac- 
cording to physiological laws ; and in the mind according 
to psychical laws. 

In all such causation there is at least a duality in the 



POWEES IN THE MIND. 27 

cause, both a physiological and a psychical : these together 
constitute the cause without which the effect would not 
follow. There is a like duplicity in the effects, both body 
and mind are changed. 

Secondly, there is causation operating in the mind itself. 
By the will and other psychical acts we can influence not 
only the body, but the state of the mind. We can detain 
the present idea, and bi'ing up thereby a succession of as- 
sociations pleasant or unpleasant : profitable, as when we 
contemplate a high exemplar, or cherish a good resolution ; 
or noxious, as we cherish revenge or lust. There are cer- 
tain states of mind which follow necessarily from certain 
others. The idea of a friend in distress raises grief, of an 
acceptable gift raises gladness. 

I am not sure that we can express accurately the nature 
of psychical causation, yet we can say much about it. We 
know so far tlie limits of the several faculties. We know 
much of the power of sense perception, as that it reveals 
objects external to us ; that we do not know distance di- 
rectly by the eye, that we cannot have any idea of a color or 
odor that has not been made known by a special inlet, — the 
man born blind has no conception of color. We have ascer- 
tained as to memory, that it remembers whatever was vivid 
in the original impression. The imagination can bring up 
in new forms and dispositions only what we have previously 
experienced. We can reason only when w^e use a middle 
term to combine the tw^o terms whose relation we do not 
know. Emotion springs up only when we have an appre- 
hension of something good or evil. Conscience approves 
of certain acts, and condenms others. We cannot express 
these powers quantitatively, as w^e do those of gravity and 
chemical affinity. We cannot number or measure them as 
w^e do the physical forces. Still we can notice their extent 
and their boundaries. Psychology is doing its proper work 



28 PSYCHICAL CAUSATION. 

when, with consciousness as its agent of observation, it is 
finding out the powers of the mind and their functions. 

In inquiring more specifically into the nature of psychi- 
cal causation we find that, while in one sense it is simple, 
in another sense it is complex. We have seen that there 
is a duality or plurality in all physical production, both in 
the cause and in the effect. We have seen that there is 
duality or plurality in the action of mind on body and body 
on mind. There is a like complexity or plurality in purely 
psychical action, both in the cause and in the effect. What 
is the cause of this reproach of conscience which we feel 
after committing an evil deed ? An essential part of it is 
no doubt the immediately state, the idea of the deed. But 
this is not all. Acting with this there is a native moral 
power, a power of conscience. It is only when there is 
joint action that the deed is condemned. The mere image 
or conception of the deed will not call forth the reproach ; 
nor, on the other hand, will the moral power act unless 
there be an apprehension of the deed : the effect is pro- 
duced by the union of the two. So it is in all cases. When 
the mother grieves over the death of her son, there is 
more than the conception of the event ; there is the deep 
affection which she cherished towards him. 

We have seen, that in physical causation, there is always 
something abiding. Aristotle had a material, as well as an 
efficient cause. It is the same mutatis mutandis in psy- 
chical action. In all material action there is a body as a 
substance, and in all mental action there is mind as a 
substance ; both being permanent. This is a truth never 
seen or acknowledged by Mr. John S. Mill, who defined 
mind as " a series of feelings aware of itself," whereas it 
is an abiding existence with a series of feelings. He de- 
fined body as " a permanent possibility of sensations," 
whereas it is a permanent thing, ever ready to produce 
sensations within our minds. The present state of the 



IMPLIES THE SOUL ACTING. 29 

soul is always the necessary effect of the immediately pre- 
ceding one. But in that preceding state, and I may add 
in the present one, there is the mind itself with its capaci- 
ties abiding. The cause of every given thought and feeling 
is thus a complex one, made up of some previous thought 
or feeling, but also of the mind thinking and feeling. 

The portrait suggests the original. Is the portrait, or 
the perception of it, the cause of the thought of the per- 
son painted ? I do not regard this as a full account of the 
cause. The portrait may be seen by one whe never saw 
the original, and to him there is no such suggestion. The 
true cause embraces the sight of the portrait, but there is 
also involved in it the mind with its knowledge of the per- 
son painted, and also the principle that like suggests like. 
When two premises are before the mind, they necessitate 
a (conclusion, as when we have it allowed that " all men 
have a conscience," and that " the Indian is a man," we 
conclude that " he has a conscience." Are the two pre- 
mises the cause of the conclusion ? I believe they are not 
to be so regarded. The act taken b}' itself is to be regarded 
as one of judgment, and not causation. In the cause there 
are not only the premises, but the laws of the mind, or 
rather the mind with its laws, that is, the laws of rea- 
soning, especially the dictum of Aristotle, that whatever 
is true of a class is true of all the members of the class. 
Every thought, every feeling, I may add every resolution, 
is thus the result of the state of the mind with its proper- 
ties, and of the immediately preceding thought or feeling, 
which might be called the occasion. It thus appears that 
the web of causation is quite as complicated in psychical 
as in physical nature. 

I am unwilling, in this paper, to enter into the con- 
flict of ages as to whether there is causation in acts of the 
will. I am prepared to argue that there is. On the other 
hand, I hold resolutely that there is a sense in which the 



30 PSYCHICAL CAUSATION. 

will is free. Holding by both these truths, as I reckon 
them, I am obliged to add that I cannot remove all the 
difficulties in which I am thus involved. It is asked, how 
can there be free will, which I resolutely hold, if our vo- 
litions are after determined by something out of them- 
selves, and above themselves ? I do not profess to be able 
thoroughly to clear up this subject ; but the view of causa- 
tion which has been set forth in this treatise is fitted, I 
reckon, to lessen, if not to remove, some of the difiiculties. 
We have seen that there may be different kinds of causa- 
tion. The causes that act on the will are certainly not 
mechanical or physical, like those which compel a body 
to move in a particular way. A man's volitions are not 
swayed altogether, or even mainly, by the same circum- 
stances ; for two men will act differently in like circum- 
stances, and this evidently owing to the difference of their 
character. We have seen that there are causes operating 
within the mind itself. Those that finally sway and de- 
termine the will lie within. If we properly understaiid the 
language, I believe we may admit that in every particular 
act the mind is swayed by motives, but the motives are to 
be found, not out of the mind, but in the mind, nay, 
largely in the will itself. The causes which sway the M'ill 
are mainly in our nature and character, in our dispositions 
and habits which our own wills have been forming. It is 
certain that this man will yield to the temptation, and be 
guilty of excessive drinking in a particular company, but 
it is because of habits which he has indulged in for years. 
It is certain that this other man will act honorably in a cer- 
tain trying position, but then it is because he is guided by 
right principles, and by an upright character. I do not 
say that this doctrine delivers us from all difficulties, but 
it helps to relieve us from the oppression which we feel 
when we are told that our whole acts are under a law of 
stern necessity which allows no liberty. 



SECTION ni. 

CAUSATION SUBJECTRTE. 

The above is all I am able to say as to the nature of 
cause. I do not claim to have removed all difficulties. 
I am satisfied if I have corrected some erroneous notions 
and shed some light on important points. I am now to 
turn to the other side of my subject, to the mental process 
involved in our conviction as to the relation between cause 
and effect. Even as causation objective pervades all nature, 
so causation subjective runs as a binding power through 
the great body of our mental exercises. 

We may allow physicists. to use the word energy for the 
activities of matter. But there is activity in mind as well 
as matter and it is needful to have a word to express both. 
The word Power may be used for this purpose. 

There are two special ways in which we come to know 
power. The one is by the muscular sense. We move a 
muscle, and we find it resisted by the objects it meets M'ith. 
We experience this in the first exercise of our muscular 
activity and in every succeeding one. There is resistance 
offered not only by that table, but by the air as the arm 
passes through it. Science finds it necessary to maintain 
that the very ether has been offering resistance to the pas- 
sage through it of the comet of Encke. The other is by 
the exercise of our voluntary power. Our volitions pro- 
duce changes directly or indirectly over our bodies of which 
we are sensible. We Mall to move the arm, and it moves. 
Our will also produces changes on the states of our mind. 



32 CAusATiojsr subjective. 

We will to detain a present thoiiglit, and it keeps with ns 
as long as we will, thereby resisting the ordinary flow of 
association. 

I believe that both these potencies have a wider exten- 
sion than is commonly snpposed. I have at times thought 
that there may be power discerned, as it is certainly in- 
volved, in the exercise of all the senses. In the vibrations 
which enter the ear, in the rays of light that fall upon the 
eye, in the odors that reach the nostrils, in the liquid which 
affect the palate, there is a mutual action dully felt of the 
touching bodies and of the organism. It might be argued, I 
think, that in all these ways we get an appi-ehension of 
bodies as having power, just as it is now generally ack- 
nowledged we have a knowledge by all the senses of bodies 
as having extension. We know our nostrils and palate as 
having a certain direction which nmst be in space, so we 
seem to know these same nostrils as affected, which implies 
power. 

I am farther sure that volitions are constantly mingling 
with our mental operations. A sensation is agreeable and 
we detain it, or it is disagreeable and we banish it or escape 
from it, and in all such processes we use causation. There 
is an exercise of will implied in the regulation of our 
thoughts, otherwise they would run wild as in our dreams. 
In making ourselves acquainted Math any subject we have 
to attend to it, and attention is an act of the will. In read- 
ing a book and in listening to a discourse we have to keep 
our thoughts from wandering, which they would be sure to 
do if they were allowed to follow merely the laws of in- 
voluntary association. We have to order our thoughts 
when we are conversing with our fellow men, and when 
we are writing intelligently. The orator has to give his 
thoughts a direction all toward a point, when he is seeking 
to arouse and persuade. The mathematician, and indeed, 



INVOLVED IN KNOWLEDGE OF THINGS. 33 

every one who reasons closely, has to restrain and guide 
his ideas and his judgments. Some have supposed that 
one difference between our waking thoughts and our dreams 
lies in the will having lost its control in the latter, mainly 
owing, it may be, to the weariness of the organism, indis- 
posing us to farther exertion till the pool which had run 
out is again filled. Causation has thus a place in the 
greater number of our thinking operations. We exercise 
power in every volition, but volition is constantly interpos- 
ing to direct our thoughts. 

Causation has a place in the very steps by which we ob- 
tain our knowledge of things. It is involved in the very 
means by which we acquire our knowledge of external 
objects. We know them as affecting us, that is, having 
power over us. It is much the same with all the knowl- 
edge acquired by us. The things have been made known by 
their having power over us, or some other thing, by which 
they are made known to us.' It is a common saying that 
we know things by their properties, but what are proper- 
ties but powers ? It is not by induction, that is, a gathered 
experience, that we know things as having power ; we know 
this in our primary experience, and in all subsequent ex- 
periences. Power is thus involved in things as known to 
us. We cannot think of them except as having powers. 

It will now be seen how I would settle the question 
which has been the leading philosophic one since the days 
of David Hume, as to whether our conviction as to cause 
and effect is a priori or a posteriori, to use the phraseology 
of Kant, 01', to employ more unexceptionable terms, arises 
at once from our looking at thincrs, or is the reasoned result 
of a gathered observation. It is certainly experiential, as aU 

' " We ai-e obliged," says Herbert Spencer in bis First Principles, "to 
regard every phenomenon as a manifestation of some Power by which, 
we are acted upon." Let him loUow out this. 
3* 



34 CAUSATION SUBJECTIVE. 

our knowledges and beliefs are in the conscionsness of the 
mind, but it is not experiential in the sense of needing in- 
duction and reasoning. It is intuitive in that we perceive 
it to be in the very nature of tlie thing. It can stand the 
tests of intuition, as these have been enunciated in the 
paper on the Criteria of Truth. We perceive objects di- 
rectly as having power and acting causally. It comes in 
consequence to be necessary ; we cannot believe it to be 
otherwise. We cannot be made to believe that there is an 
event without a cause, or a causal relation without a defi- 
nite action being ready to follow. It is, thirdly, universal 
in that all men have the conviction. 

Not that this is done without the competent and appropri- 
ate mental capacity, but this is neither less nor more than the 
faculty to perceive the thing, and what is in tlie thing. 
These perceptions may take several forms, such as primitive 
cognitions, faiths, and judgments: cognitions when we 
look directly on things, faiths when they are absent and 
yet we believe in them, and judgments when we compare 
the things known and believed in. Our perception of self 
and body having power is of the nature of a primitive 
cognition. Our conviction as to cause is more of the re- 
lation of a judgment in which we discover a relation. Ex- 
cept that I am not partial to the formidable nomenclature, 
I am willing to allow it to be called, with Kant, a synthetic 
judgment d j)rio7^i. But the two, cause and eifect, are 
connected, not by a category or a form of any kind in the 
mind, as Kant held, but in the very nature of the things, 
in the action of things according to their nature, that is, 
the properties or powers by which they are endowed. 



SECTION IV. 

VARIOUS SORTS OF CAUSES. 

From the nature of causation, as I have endeavored to 
unfold it, there is a vast complexity in the activities of our 
world. There are two, or commonly more, agents in every 
cause, two or more in every effect. AVhat a variety of 
powers at work in the great natural occurrences, say in the 
seasons, in the production of spring with its increased heat, 
its buds and blossoms and leaves. AVhat a complication 
in the production of the great epochs of histoi-y : in the 
spread of Christianity, in the revival of learning in the 
fifteenth century, in the great Reformation of religion, 
in the English, the American, and French revolutions. 
There are innumerable agencies concurring and crossing 
in all the important events of our personal and family 
life. 

In this complexity a number of very marked operations, 
well w^orth}^ of consideration, come under our view. One 
of these is Development or Evolution. All physical cau- 
sation is in a sense evolution ; it is a body, or rather a com- 
bination of bodies in one state produced by a body or 
bodies in another state. The development as such may or 
may not be beneficent. It is conceivable that it might 
move on ruthlessly, working only confusion and misery to 
sentient beings. When it proceeds in an orderly manner, 
with beneficent laws, and means of promoting the comfort 
of animate beings, there is evidence of good arrangement. 
The subject of Development is so important as to require 



86 VARIOUS SORTS OF CAUSES. 

a separate paper, when it will be shown that it is an or- 
ganized causation. 

It will be necessary here to take np a subject on which 
I fear little light can be thrown at present. It is the na- 
ture of energy and causation in chemical action. Oxygen 
and hydrogen combine to form water ; what is the relation 
of the two elements ? Is it simply mechanical ? Or does 
it imply the existence and operation of a separate power 
which we may provisionally call the chemical ? To these 
questions no very satisfactory reply can be given at present. 
There are some presumptions in favor of its being shown 
in the end that the imion is merely mechanical. On the 
other hand, there are phenomena which cannot be thus ex- 
plained at the stage which science has now reached. The 
most remarkable peculiarity of this chemical combination 
is that the compound exhibits properties of which no trace 
can be found in the separate elements. Water shows 
qualities which neither oxygen nor hydrogen seem to pos- 
sess. In consequence many questions arise which cannot 
at this present time be definitely and certainly answered. 
Were the powers now shown by the compound in the ele- 
ments in a potential, but not in a real state ? Have we in 
the union merely an example or the duality or plurality in 
all causation, the elements taking a new form or shape in 
the compound ? It is certain the bodies constituting the 
elements have not lost their identity. The water can be 
decomposed, by some other body acting on it, into the oxy- 
gen and hydrogen of which it is composed. 

The above are questions which we may expect to have 
settled sooner or later, as we come to know more of the 
constitution of matter. 

In the complexity of causal action we may notice the 
combination of a number of agencies necessary in order to 
the production of results which have an important place 



aeistotle's four causes. 37 

in the economy of nature. These, in a loose sense, may 
be called canses. From the very commencement of re- 
flective inquiry men had to refer to causes. But for ages 
the views taken and the nomenclature used were vague and 
confused, though containing important elements of trnth 
which have been unfortunately omitted in the more pre- 
cise systems of modern times. In the theosophies of the 
East causation was represented as an emanation of one thing 
out of another, and of all things out of God. The ten- 
dency in this conception was toward pantheism. The 
Pythagoreans made numbers the cause of things, meaning 
that which makes things what they are. Aristotle blames 
Plato for neglecting efficient and final causes and giving 
exclusive attention to the matter out of which things are 
formed, and the form they are made to take. 

Aristotle was the first to draw distinction between the 
different kinds of cause. This he did in his Physics, ii. 3, 
and recapitulated in his Metaphysics, i. 3, with a farther 
reference in Post Anal., ii. 11. In these passages he uses 
the word (cause) in a widei*, and it may be allowed in a 
looser, sense than we now do. The grand object of the 
First Philosophy is to discover causes. By cause he meant 
all that is necessary to account for or expLain a thing, all 
that is necessary in order to its helng as it is, and there- 
fore to our comprehending it and explaining it. In later 
times the word cause is commonly restricted to efficient 
cause, to productive cause, or as Hume analyzed it, inva- 
riable antecedent. Aristotle included this, but also in- 
cluded other things oiecessary, as he thought, to make a 
thing loJiat it is / which is his definition of cause. Fie had 
four kinds of causes. He had first a matter and a subject 
{rrjv vXrjv Kai to vTTOKei/xevov). He had secondly a cause, 
whence the beginning of motion (o6ev t) ap^ti Tf]<; KLvrjaeta). 
Thirdly, he had a cause which was the substance — that in 



38 VAEIOUS SORTS OF CAUSES. 

wliicli a tiling consisted {rrjv ovaiav koX to tl r/v elvaC). 
Fourthly, he had that on account of which a thing is (to 
6v eveKo). More briefly, he had a vXij, an a/o^^ Kiv]]cre(x)<f, 
an etSo9, and a TeA.o?, which we translate a material, an 
efficient, a formal, and a final cause. He sought in every 
object for each of these. He did not regard the one as 
inconsistent with the other. He often found several of 
them in one and the same object (De Anim,, ii. 8). In 
regard to the material cause, he represents the lonians as 
seeking for it and finding it in water, air, or fire. As to 
the efficient cause, he regarded it as that which produces 
motion or change. The formal cause corresponded to the 
Idea of Plato, only he represents it as being not above 
things, but in things. He does not use final cause to 
prove the divine existence ; he supposes the thing to have 
in itself (as immanent) an end after which it is striving — 
a view very much the same as that taken by Hegel. Pie 
blames Plato for neglecting the efficient and the final, and 
confining his attention to the material and the formal. 

These distinctions were not drawn by the thinkers who 
preceded Aristotle. Socrates, without giving final cause a 
separate place, used the argument from final cause — the 
argument from intention or design, as seen for instance in 
the eyelids to protect the eyes. Plato argued more from 
the models or patterns in nature. Epicurus simply ignored 
final causes. The Stoics identified efficient and final, 
representing every thing as done in conformity with the 
decree (fatum) of God ; and so ordered that one thing is a 
prognostic of another thing. Cicero (De Nat. Deor. 115) 
and Augustine (Civ. Dei, xi. 4, 21) appeal, like Plato, to 
the order of the universe. The schoolmen did not use 
Aristotle's division of causes so frequently as they did his 
logical distinctions, but occasionally they proceeded upon it. 

Coming to modern times, Bacon adopted Aristotle's four- 



MATERIAL, EFFICIENT, FORMAL, AND FINAL. 39 

fold division of causes. He gives material and formal 
causes to Physics, and formal and final to Metaphysics, 
which he regards as occupying a higher sphere than phy- 
sics. It is often said, by men who have ne\er read Bacon's 
works and take his opinions at second-hand, that Bacon 
sets aside final cause. This is an entire mistake. He 
would exclude it from physics, but it is only to give it a 
higher place in metaphysics. He compares it to the vestal 
virgins, not productive indeed, but dedicated to God. He 
erred, I think, in excluding final cause altogether from 
physics, where it may be used, if properly restricted, in 
the study of organisms, where the means are ends and the 
ends means. While he was living, Harvey discovered the 
circulation of the blood by the principle of teleology, argu- 
ing that the valves which he saw opening in one direction 
and not in the opposite must be intended to let a fluid 
pass through — thus discovering the grand doctrine of the 
circulation of the blood. But Bacon was right in insisting so 
strongly that the discovery of final cause should not keep men 
from seekinsi: the efficient cause. Bacon attached great 
importance to the discovery of forms, which he represented 
as the supreme end of all science. The form of a thing is 
that which makes it what it is — thus, anticipating our latest 
science, he regards motion as the form of heat. Without 
fully seeing it, he came ver}^ near to Plato ; the aim of all 
science, according to both, being to discover ideas, forms, 
or patterns ; only, accoixling to Plato, the ideas are to be 
discovered by calling forth the inward idea, while accord- 
ing to Bacon they are to be found by a careful induction 
of facts. Bacon showed profound wisdom in making the 
discovery of forms the supreme end of all science ; and in 
placing the forms of nature at the very top of the pyramid 
and next unto God. 

Descartes perceived God in every mechanical action, and 



40 VARIOUS SORTS OF CAUSES. 

could not believe that God was to be seen in one act 
more than in another: and insists that we onsht to be- 
ware lest, " in our presumption, we imagine that the ends 
which God proposed to Himself in the creation of the 
world are understood by us" (Princip. Philos., iii. 2j. 
There is a misapprehension here of the kind of ends sup- 
posed to be discovered by final cause, and it is curious that 
his error is pointed out by Gassendi, an adherent of the 
Epicurean philosophy. " You say," he replies to Des- 
cartes, " that it does not seem to you that you could inves- 
tigate and undertake to discover without rashness the ends 
of God. But although that may be true if yon mean to 
speak of ends that God has willed to be hidden, still it 
cannot be the case with those which He has, as it were, 
exposed to the view of the world, and which are discovered 
without much labor." The celebrated natural philosopher 
Robert Boyle also answered Descartes. Referring to a 
gnomonic instrument, " It would no doubt be great pre- 
sumption on the part of a peasant, ignorant alike of mathe- 
matical science and the intentions of the artist, to believe 
himself capable of discovering all the ends in view of 
which this machine so curiously wrought has been con- 
structed ; but wlien he remarks that it is furnished 
with an index with lines and horary numbers — in short, 
with all that constitutes a sun-dial, and sees successively 
the shadow of the index mark in succession the hour of 
the day, there would on his part be as little presumption 
as error in concluding that this instrument, whatever may 
be its other uses, is certainly a dial made to sliow the 
hours." Leibnitz, with his usual comprehensiveness of 
mind, would unite final and physical causes. " It is good," 
he says, " to conciliate those who hope to explain mechani- 
cally the formation of the first texture of an animal, and 
of the entire mechanism of the parts with those who give 



MATERIAL AND EFFICIEXT. 41 

an account of the same structure by final causes. Both 
are good, and the authors who follow these different ways 
ouglit not to abuse each other." ' 

From this survey we gatlier that some of the profoundest 
thinkers that have appeared in our world have seen more 
tlian mechanical cause in the course of nature, and that 
they have discovered no inconsistency between efficient 
and final cause. We are now to illustrate these two points. 

There is a foundation in nature for Aristotle's fourfold 
division of explanatory causes, though we may have to 
amend it somewhat to suit it to modern science. 

Material Cause. — Here we inquire into the nature of the 
substances, be they inanimate body, or living body or 
mind. It is the end pursued in chemistry, and in all the 
sciences dependent on it, and so far also in psychology. 
No doubt the inquiries into the matter, and the forces in 
matter, may be mixed up with each otlier ; but they may 
be distinguished, and it is often desirable to separate them. 

We may or may not approve of calling the matter out 
of which a thing is formed a cause^ but it certainly has a 
place, and this a deep one, in the economy of nature, and 
as such it should be acknowledged. It is allowed that 
there is never energy without body, and the body should 
be taken into account as well as the energy, in explaining 
what things are and how they act. 

Efficient Cause. — This is the kind of cause whose nature 
I have been seeking to determine in the earlier part of this 
paper. It is the power element in what makes a, thing to 
be what it is. This sort of cause is not inconsistent with 
the others. It is necessary in order to make the matter 
take a form and fulfil an end. 

' The quotations from Gassendi, Boyle, and Leibnitz may be found 
in M. Janet's work on " Final Cause," translated by W. Affleck, pp. 184, 
185, 119. 



42 VAEIOUS SORTS OF CAUSES. 

Formal Cause — the idea of Plato, the etSo? of Aristotle, 
the law of modern science, and the type of naturalists. 
We have here mechanical causes, but co-ordinated so as to 
produce orderly results, as we see in what are called the 
laws of nature. The properties of bodies, such as attrac- 
tion, chemical affinity, etc., may be simple ; but they re- 
quire conditions, that is, co-operating agents, in order to 
their working. But the general laws of nature are always 
complex ; that is, imply the action of two or more agents 
operating and co-operating. We see this in the law of the 
succession of day and night, of the revolution of the 
seasons, spring, summer, autumn, and winter ; in the 
motion of the planets in their orbits. What a number and 
variety of agents conspiring in the reproduction of plants 
and animals ; in the seed, the blade, the fruit, the decay 
of the vegetable ; in the germ, the growth, the death of 
the animal ! What a complexity in order to the pro- 
duction of the mathematically exact forms and harmonious 
colors of the shell, the stalk and the flower of plants, and the 
bones of animals ! What a combination to produce those 
types according to which we classify the animate king- 
doms, and which make every living thing to grow after its 
kind ! What a complex complexity in that assortment of 
forces which produce development and heredity — processes 
of which we now talk so glibly and familiarly, but of the 
elements of which we know so little ! All these may be 
called the ideas or forms of nature. 

Much the same may be said of Formal as I have said of 
Material cause : we may or may not approve of the term 
cause being applied to it. But it is quite as clear that 
things are made to take a form as tliat they have a matter, 
and are produced out of that matter. It is one end aimed 
at in all science to discover what the form, or, as it is now 
more commonly called, the law is. Our view of nature is 



FORMAL AND FIXAL CAUSE. 43 

narrow and partial if we see only its composition and tlie 
mechanical powers acting in it. In that rich web we 
should notice not only the silk threads and the shuttle 
carrying them along, but also the pattern after which the 
whole is formed. 

Final Cause. — Here there is a concurrence of mechanical 
or efficient causes to produce an evident result. It is not 
an antecedent followed by an effect ; it is the consequent 
or issue of a number of conspiring antecedents. From 
the number of agents combining to effect an end we 
argue that there are intentions and purposes. I suppose 
a hmidred agents so far independent must combine before 
I can see. I infer that there must have been a designed 
arrangement in order to their coming together to produce 
the obvious end. 

We discover these four causes in the works of man. 
That statue of Hercules had a material cause in the marble 
in the quarry ; an efficient cause in the chisel of the sculp- 
tor ; a formal cause in the shape given it ; and a final cause 
in its being set up in a temple. We can discover the same 
four causes in nature. In shells we have the matter, be it 
carbonate of lime, or whatever else ; the chemical forces 
operating ; the mathematical form taken — possibly a spiral ; 
and an end the protection of the animal. In the plant, 
say the apple-tree, we have the chemical elements ; we 
have the vital forces, whatever they be ; we have the shape 
taken by the tree and by its flower; and a final cause in 
the fruit provided for the sustenance of living creatures. 
In the cereals there is matter in the composition of the 
plants, an efficient (not necessarily a mechanical) cause in 
the vital forces, a formal cause in the form taken, and a 
final cause in the food provided for the nourishment of 
man and living creatures. Take the two colors, blue-purple 
and orange-yellow, found in the flower of the forget- me- 



44 VAEIOUS SORTS OF CAUSES. 

not : tliej must have a composition produced in some way 
bj the dividing of the beam ; thej are found in all the 
plants of the species ; and they are suited to the eye, which 
delights to look on complementary colors — that is, the 
colors that make up the beam. 

I believe that these four principles can be discovered in 
all animated objects. In dead matter it may be more 
difficult to detect all of them in every individual object. 
Yet in the higher forms we can discover several of them. 
Thus in crystals, the crystalline forms, which all bodily 
substances are capable of assuming, we have the matter, 
the forces, and also the forms ; but it might be difficult to 
discover a special final cause. Plato, in seeking to find his 
idea everywhere, was asked whether he could find it in the 
dust or sand of the ground, and acknowledged that he was 
in difficulties. Modern science could help him here, and 
show him by the microscope beautiful forms in the rudest 
matter. It might be impossible in such cases to detect a 
final cause ; but just as we argue that thei'e is efficient 
cause evei'ywhere, though we may not be able to discover 
it in every occurrence, we may, on a like principle, infer \ 
that as we discover a purpose in so many parts of nature 
so there is purpose everywhere, if only we can discover it ; 
and thus reach the conclusion of Socrates, Plato, and Leib- 
nitz, that nature consists of physical causes working for 
ends. 



SECTION V. 

FESTAL CAUSE. 

I AM sure that the course of nature cannot be compre- 
liended or explained except by taking into account more 
than efficient cause, except indeed by all of the principles 
we have been considering. The chemist will insist on 
knowing what is the elemental composition of the crystal, 
the rose, or the crustacean. The naturalist will seek for 
the type that he may be able to arrange it. The merchant 
will wish to know its economical use that lie may buy or 
sell it. 

We know not what is the number of elements in the 
material universe. The ancient Greeks supposed them to 
be four : air, water, fire, and earth. Modern chemistry 
has found sixty -four, which it cannot analyze into any 
thing simpler. Many chemists think that some of these 
can be resolved into others. It is certain that there is in 
nature a certain number of elements, be it four or sixty- 
four, with their properties. We may conclude that these 
are adapted to each other. Were they not, they would 
not act upon each other, molecule on molecule, atom on 
atom, mass on mass, as they evidently do. The orderly 
results point to an instituted order. Being so adapted, if 
these elements were cast into a capacious vessel, they 
would produce regular results such as we see in a kaleido- 
scope, where we have a number of beads thrown into a 
constructed receptacle, and reflected by glass, and produc- 
ing regular figures. Here we have in the figures a material 



46 FINAL CAUSE. 

cause in the instrument, with its wood and glass and beads ; 
an efficient cause in the movements of the beads ; and a 
formal cause in the regular shapes and dispositions. It 
can scarcely be said that in the figures themselves there is 
a final cause, for no end is served by them, except indeed 
to give pleasure to the beholder. But there is certainly a 
formal cause. And I would have it noticed tliat this form 
is a result of arrangements made, and of mutual ada]3tations, 
arguing a purpose and design. So it is with the laws, as 
they are called, and types of nature. They are the result 
of a vast number of agents or efficient causes combining 
and co-operating. We thus see that the very order of 
nature is a manifestation and evidence, as Plato, Cicero, 
and Augustine argued, of plan and purpose, and therefore 
of intelligence. 

But Final Cause furnishes another and a more special 
argument. It may be noticed of the figures of the kaleido- 
scope that they never show final cause, properly so called. 
They never show amidst their great varieties such utility 
as a lichen, a polype, a finger or a toe, much less a hand or 
an ear. Mathematicians tell us how many millions of 
chances there are against a handful of molecules ever pro- 
ducing an ear, and how many millions of millions, against 
their producing in the same fraine an eye, a nose, a tongue, 
skin, and muscle, and nerve, and brain. How many mil- 
liards of milliards of chances against the formation of all 
the senses and organs of all the creatures on the face of 
the earth. The meeting of these efficient causes in the ' 
frame of man and animal makes it as certain as mathe- 
matics can make it of their being an end contemplated and 
designed. 

The force of this argument is not to be avoided by say- 
ing that what we represent as final causes are merely con- 
ditions of existence. True they are conditions of existence ; 



REVIEW OF PEOFESSOR j^EWCOMB. 47 

but the proofs of design lie in the conditions of existence 
all meeting in the hundreds or thousands of coincidences 
all coming together to form the rose, or the deer. The 
strings of a harp are the conditions of its existence, and 
wcy argue that the harp has been made for a purpose, be- 
cause the strings are all there and yield music. 

At this place I think it proper to refer to the Coui'se of 
Nature^ an address delivered by Professor ISTewcomb, as 
President of the American Association for the Promotion of 
Science. I do so because there is presented there, by a gen- 
tleman whom I profoundly respect, the views entertained by 
a great many scientific men in the present day. The Pro- 
fessor evidently labors under several very erroneous impres- 
sions in regard to final cause. " From the very earliest at 
which man began to think two modes of explaining the 
operations of nature have presented themselves to his at- 
tention. These modes are sometimes designated as the 
teleological and mechanical." He thinks that final cause is 
meant to give the same sort of explanation of a phenome- 
non as efiicient cause. But all enlightened defenders of 
final cause have asserted that the two principles or causes 
do not accomplish the same ends. Final causes or ends I 
were ne;ver meant to account for the production of an event ; 
this is done by efiicient cause. On the other hand, an effi- 
cient cause does not show how efficient causes or forces' 
should combine to produce an obviously intended beneficent 
result — the good, as Aristotle calls the final cause. The 
fact that the ear was meant to hear did not make the ear, 
though there are passages in Lamarck which seem to indi- 
cate that the wish of the fish to fly actually gave it wings. 
We bring in efficient cause to explain one thing, namely, 
production ; and final cause to explain another thing, a 
combination to produce a useful end. Again, he argues 
that we are entitled to call in final cause only when physi- 



48 FINAL CAUSE. 

cal cause fails, thereby falling into the error of Kant and 
Laplace, both far-sighted but one-eyed men. But surely 
he sees both efficient and final cause in the telescope by 
which he scans the heavens so profitably : efficient cause 
in the formation of it by Clark, and final cause in the use 
to which he is able to turn it. 'Nor will it do to say that 
he uses the instrument because it is there ; it is there be- 
cause he or some other was meant to employ it. It is 
conceivable that there should be a like union of the two 
principles in the eye and in the works of nature generally. 

He is evidently under a farther impression that the two 
are inconsistent. He thus makes them rivals, and supposes 
that the one strives with and overcomes the other. But 
final cause, so far from being inconsistent with efficient 
cause, implies a combination of physical causes, which are 
blind in themselves, but which are led by a prearranging 
230wer to combine to accomplish an end. He insinuates 
that as mechanical cause comes to be seen everywhei'e final 
cause will have to hide itself. But viewed by a mind 
capable of seeing two truths alongside of each other, the 
belief in and the evidence of ends in nature are not vanish- 
ing, as the Professor expects. We have as clear and cer- 
tain proof that the eye was meant to see and the ear to 
hear as the first man had, and can now discover more f nlly 
the wonderful machinery by which the ends are effected. 

The Professor's argument against final cause is the most 
glaring example of the fallacy of irrelevant conclusion or 
of ignoratio elenohi, which I have seen for many a day. 
He would disprove the existence of final cause, and he 
merely attempts to prove the universal presence of mechani- 
cal cause. With proper explanations we may admit all he 
claims as to mechanism and not feel thereby that teleology 
is weakened. Let us look at the principles at work when 
our astronomer gazes at a binary star with his telescope. 



EFFICIENT AND FINAL CAUSE. 49 

Rays go ont from tlie star, proceed in vibrations, first 
through millions of miles of ether, then through thousands 
of miles of air ; then into the telescope, where they are 
turned in a variety of ways ; then into the eye, into the 
cornea, which is transparent; into convergent media, which 
unite the luminous rays, the three refracting media — the 
aqueous humor, crystalline lens, and vitreous humor — till 
they fall on the retina, where, according to the theory of 
Young, carried out by Helmholtz, there are twelve thou- 
sand or even twenty thousand cones, sensitive to various 
kinds of light, and they form there the image of two stars 
with perhaps complementary colors. The process is not 
ended till an action goes up through the optic nerve into 
the brain, and not till then does the astronomer see his 
star. The want or the failure of any one of these proces- 
ses, thousands in number, would prevent vision or make it 
imperfect.' In this long and complicated process there has 
been mechanical cause throughout. Professor Newcomb 
will not deny that there is final cause, in the part of it 
which goes on in the telescope ; but if there be an end 
manifested in the passage of the rays through the one in- 
strument, the telescope, there is like, but far stronger evi- 
dence of a purpose in the other instrument, the eye. 

In all such discussions a distinction of some kind is drawn 
as to the actual operations of the forces or laws of nature. 

' M. Janet has shown that Helmholtz has answered his own objection 
derived from the imperfections in the eye. The great German physi- 
cist says : " The appropriateness of the eye to its end exists in the most 
perfect manner, and is revealed even in the limits given to its defects. 
A reasonable mmi will not take a razor to cleave blocks ; in like manner 
every useful retinement in the optical use of the eye would have ren- 
dered that organ more delicate and slower in its application." This ia 
sufficient to defend final cause. But a full explanation may have to 
take into account the existence — the great mystery of our world — of 
disease and pain. 
3 



50 FINAL CAUSE. 

Paley in his "JSTatural Theology" indicates a distinction 
between the laws of nature and their construction, and 
speaks of an adjustment being necessary, and of ''the laws 
being fixed" and "the construction being adapted to them" 
("Nat. TheoL," iii.). Dr. Chalmers drew elaborately 
and illustrated at great length the distinction between the 
Laws of Matter and the Collocations or Dispositions of 
Matter. " We can imagine all the present and existing 
laws of matter to be in full operation, and yet, just for the 
want of a right local disposition of parts, the universe 
might be that wild undigested medley of things in which 
no one trace or character of a designing architect was at all 
discernible " (" :fsat. TheoL," ii. 1). Mr. Mill has adopted 
this distinction, and sees that " collocations as well as laws 
are necessary to the operation of nature " (" Log.," iii. 12, 
16). I have taken up the subject at this point and endeavored 
to give the distinction greater precision. I have shown 
that it is between, not the laws of matter and collocations, 
but between the properties of matter and adjustments 
necessary to their operation. I have shown that the laws 
of matter are not simple, but complex, and imply adjust- 
ments ; this is the ease with the seasons, the typical forms 
of plants and animals ; all imply a number of agents or 
properties combined to produce a uniform result. Such 
laws are not mechanical forces, but the results of mechani- 
cal forces adjusted ("Meth. Div. Gov.," ii. 1) and implying 
a purpose. Professor l^ewcomb seems to feel a difiiculty 
in understanding how there should be anything else than 
mechanism necessary to explain the coarse of nature. And 
yet he has been obliged to draw this very distinction with- 
out seeing its meaning : " In this work we have to be con- 
cerned with two things — the general laws of nature, as 
they are familiarly called, and the facts or circumstances 
which determine the operation of these laws." 



I 



MECHANICAL CAUSES AND ENDS. 51 

The Professor imagiues tliat final cause implies " inter- 
ference " and " miracles," and says : " We are not to call 
in a supernatural cause to account for a result which could 
have been produced bj the action of the known laws of 
nature." But according to the view of the great body of 
the supporters of final cause, and according to the view 
now presented, we do not need to call in a '" supernatural 
cause," for all may be performed by the known laws of 
nature. Xor do we need an interference to bring about 
the special designs of God, say to send blessings, when 
God so intends it, to reward the good ; or judgments when 
He means to arrest the evil, or to give an answer to prayer 
for things agreeable to His will. There is no interference 
with the machine in a factory when it lets off its cotton, 
or its linen thread, or its paper ; it M^as planned and ad- 
justed for this very purpose. The grain-reaper is all 
mechanical, and it has no conscious design ; but it throws 
off and binds its sheaves for an evident purpose. So in 
the far grander machinery of nature it is arranged that 
good is encouraged and evil so far restrained and punished. 
True, the mechanical forces work blindly : they know not 
and do not care for the consequences ; but these were all 
foreseen by One who appointed them and arranged them 
for the accomplishment of grand purposes, and small ones 
— as we reckon them ; for the progress of the world in 
knowledge and civilization, to adorn that lily, to feed that 
raven, to secure that the sparrow cannot fall to the ground, 
and protect, in answer to prayer, the widow and the father- 
less. 

I could show, if the time allowed or the subject required, 
that there is a wonderful correspondence between the 
scientific doctrine of the uniformity of nature and the 
Scripture doctrine of foreordination. They are the same 
ti'uths ; the one seen from below and from the earth, the 



52 FINAL CAUSE. 

other seen from above and from heaven. Both imply that 
every thing is fixed ; bnt both also imply that every thing 
is arranged to accomplish special, and these beneficent, 
ends. T^ature is uniform, and as we perceive it to be so, 
we proceed to nse that very uniformity. Every thing is 
ordained, and believing that prayer is one of the ordained 
means, we use prayer to secure our ends — these ends being 
agreeable to His will. Because nature is uniform, we do 
not, tlierefore, on account of speculative difiiculties, refuse 
to toil for our food. Just as little does the Christian, 
because of infidel objections, refuse to pray for blessings 
such as God is ready to give ; and he finds that the bless- 
ing has been ordained and comes at the proper time, and 
in answer to the prayer which has also been ordained, and 
this to secure its end. 

Professor ISTewcomb quotes, without naming me, my de- 
fence of Providence in my work on " The Method of the 
Divine Government," and objects to my statement that a 
rock may fall at a prearranged moment and kill a person 
beneath it. He says " the moment is fixed entirely by 
antecedent circumstances, such as the solubility of the rock 
and the amount of water which percolates over it. At 
that very moment the rock begins to fall." l!^ow I agree 
with all this. But he himself has admitted that there are 
" facts or circumstances which determine the operation of 
these laws." The question arises who ai-ranged these 
" facts or circumstances," which are needed, however far 
we go back beyond the nature of the rock and the water, 
and which imply an arrangement from the beginning ? He 
acknowledges that if we had sufficient capacity we could 
from a knowledge of the causes (including always their 
adaptations) predict all that would follow. But if this be 
so, may we not conceive of a Being who not only foresees 
but has arranged all that follows ? That Being might so 



JAXET ON FINAL CAUSE. 53 

arrange them that special ends are accomplished, and these 
such that thej are obvions to every thinking mind. 

Xor are we, in discovering these ends, going into the 
region of speculation, to which the Professor allots everj- 
thing but mechanical cause. He talks of science, meaning 
meclianical, concerning itself " with phenomena and the 
relations which connect them." I am sure that the same 
intelligence which can discover the connections and relations 
in mechanical cause is all that is needed to discover the 
combination of causes which constitutes final cause. As 
M. Janet puts it, " The error of the scientists is in believ- 
ing that they have eliminated final causes from nature, 
when tlie^^ have shown how certain effects result from 
certain given causes." " We must not say 'that the bird 
has wings in order to fly ; but that it flies because it has 
wings.' But wherein, I ask you, are these two propositions 
contradictory ? In assuming that a bird has wings in 
order to fly, must not its flight result from the structure 
of these wings ? Consequently, because the flight is a 
result, is it right to conclude that it is not at the same time 
an end ? Would it then be necessary, in order to recognize 
final causes, that you should see in nature effects without 
a cause or effects disproportioned to these causes ?" 

We are in danger at this present time of a whole swarm 
of young naturalists, following one or two leaders, attack- 
ino; final cause without knowino; what it means. We are 
happy, in these circumstances, to have a work by a French 
philosopher which rests the doctrine on the proper footing, 
and coi'rects the misapprehensions of objectors. It is not 
necessary to give an epitome of M. Janet's " Final Causes." 
Those interested in the subject will go directly to the work 
now so accessible. Any one perplexed may here have his 
thoughts cleared up. Those who would oppose final cause 
must attempt to answer it, and as they do so they may find 



54 FIlSrAL CAUSE. 

every objection to the doctrine effectively disposed of. He 
shows first as a matter of fact, and this independent of any 
theological bearing, that there is finality or teleology in 
nature. He founds " the existence of the final cause on 
this principle, that when a complex combination of hetero- 
geneous phenomena is found to agree with the possibility 
of a future act which was not contained beforehand in any 
of these phenomena in particular, this agreement can only 
be comprehended by the human mind by a kind of pre- 
existence in an ideal form of the future act itself, which 
transforms from a result into an end — that is to say, into 
a final cause." He show^s, secondly, that this teleology 
implies an intelligent cause. 

He is particularly successful in showing that develop- 
ment, so far from superseding final cause, implies it 
throughout. Hugh Miller had said, in criticising the 
" Vestiges of Creation," that development does not affect 
the argument for the Divine existence. Professor Huxley 
allows this fully. Professor Asa Gray discovers an order 
and design in development. But M. Janet has discussed the 
subject more fully. 'No one will maintain that development 
is a simple mechanical law. It is the law of a most compli- 
cated correlation of forces, most of which are as yet un- 
known. When these are detected, by some l^ewton of 
physiology yet to appear, it will be seen that development, 
always kept within its proper sphere, more perhaps than 
any other process of nature involves a complexity of ad- 
justments all tending toward a point, the preservation, and 
I believe the gradual elevation, of plants and animals. 

Professor jSTewcomb's discourse is on the Course of K^a- 
ture. But there is vastly more in that organized course 
than he and other scientists are noticing. I have endeav- 
ored to spread out that lich web, of which the forces which 
he has looked at are the mere threads. I have proceeded on 



I 



VAKIOrs CAUSES I^ NATURE. 55 

the fourfold explanation of nature by Aristotle, only modi- 
fying it somewhat to adapt it to modern science. All 
that I insist on is that nature cannot be understood, ex- 
cept by such principles as those I have been unfolding. I 
discover not only force which hurries on like a railway train, 
but rails to restrain it and intelligence guiding it. I find not 
only mechanism, but machines constructed for ends. The 
mechanical doctrine, if carried out exclusively, would strip 
nature of all that endears it to us — of all its sunshine, of 
all its beauty and beneficence, and leave nothing to call 
forth our admiration, our gratitude, our love. A skeletoii 
is an interesting' object to an anatomist, but I love to see 
it clothed with form and color and expression. I am in- 
terested in the restless activity of nature, capable of work- 
ing such effects for evil or for good ; but I do not feel 
assurance, and my soul is not elevated to adoration till I 
see the powers harmoniously joining to produce regular 
laws, and types after their kind, and intelligible species, 
and special -ends of support and benignity. Pythagoras 
uttered a profound truth, and had doubtless glimpses of 
its meaning, when he said that if men's perceptions were 
sufficiently acute they would hear the music of the spheres, 
being, I may add, the voice of One boldly represented by 
an old prophet as " joying over His works with singing." 



The Emotions. 

;BY 

JAMES McCOSH, D.D., LL.D., 

President of Princeton College. 



One Volume, crown 8vo., _ _ _ $2.00 

In this little volume of two hundred and fifty clearly printed pages 
Dr. McCosh treats first of the elements of emotion, and, secondly, of the 
classification and description of the emotions. He has been led to the 
consideration of his theme, as he says in his preface, by the vagueness and 
ambiguity in common thought and literature in connection with the subject, 
and by " the tendency on the part of the prevailing physiological psychol- 
ogy of the day to resolve all feeling and our very emotions into nervous 
action, and thus gain an important province of our nature to materialism." 
The work is characterized by that " peculiarly animated and commanding 
style which seems to be a part of the author." 



I 



CRITICAL NOTICES. 

"Dr. McCosh's style is as lucid, vigorous, and often beautiful as of old. 7"here 
5s never any doubt as to his meaning, nor any hesitation in his utteiance." — Lo>idon 
Academy. 

" It would be well if all who have it as the r business to influence the character of 
men would study such a work as this on the Emotions." — Exatniner and Chrotiicle. 

"We recommend it to all students as a perspicuous and graceful contribution to 
what has always proved to be the most popular part of mental philosophy." — I7ie N. V. 
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things which are not always combined. ... It will prove attractive and instructive 
to any intelligent reader." — Albany Evening Journal. 

"The analysis is clear and the style of crystalline clearness. We are inclined to 
think it will be the most popular of the author's works. We have read it from beginning 
to end with intense enjoyment — with as much interest, indeed, as could attach to any 
Work of fiction." — The Presbyterian. 

" TTie whole subject of the volume is treated by Dr. McCosh in .a common sense way, 
with large reference to its practical applications, aiming at clearness of expression and 
aotness of illustration, rather than with any show of metaphysical acuteness or technical 
nicety, and often with uncommon beauty and force ol diction." — A'^. Y. Tribune. 

"Apart from the comprehension of the entire argument, any chapter and almost 
every section will prove a quickening and nourishing portion to many who will ponder 
it It will be a liberal feeder of pastors and preachers who turn to it. The almost 
prodigal ouday of illustrations to be found from first to finis, will fascuiate the reader ii 
nothing else does." — Christian Intelligencer. 



*4(.* For sale by all booksellers, or sent, postpaid., upon receipt of 
^rice, by 

CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS, Publishers, 

743 AND 745 Broadway, New York. 



The Conflicts of the y^ge. 



One Vol., 8vo, - Paper, 50 Cts. ; Cloth, 75 Cts. 



The four articles which make up this little volume are : 

(i) An Advertisement for a New Religion. By an Evolutionist. 

(2) The Confession of an Agnostic. By an Agnostic. 

(3) 'What Morality have we left ? By a Ne^v-Light Moralist. 

(4) Review of the Fight. By a Yankee Farmer. 

The secret of its authorship has not yet transpired, and the reviewers 
seem badly puzzled in their attempts to solve the mystery. 



CRITICAIi NOTICES. 

" Nowhere can an ordinary reader see in a more simple and pleasing form the 
absurdities which lie in the modern speculaliuns about truth and duly. We have no key 
to the authorship, but the writer evidently holds a practiced pen, and knows how to give 
that air of persijlage in treating of serious subjects which sometimes is more effective 
than the most cogent dialectic."' — Christian Intelligejicer. 

"Tt is the keenest, best sustained exposure of the weaknesses inherent in certain 
schools of modern thought, whica we have yet come across, and is couched in a vein of 
fine satire, making it exceedingly readable. For an insight into the systems it touches 
upon, and for its suggestions oi methods of meeting them, it is capable of being a great 
help to the clergy. It is a new d- parture in apologetics, quite in the spirit of the time.'' — 
The Living Church. 

"The writer has chosen to appear anonymously; but he holds a pen keen as a 
Damascus blade. Indeed, there are few men living capable of writing these papers, 
and of dissecting so thoroughly the popular conceits and shams of the day. It is done, 
too, with a coolness, self-possession, and sang-froid, that are inimitable, however un- 
comfortable it may seem to the writhing victims." — The Guardian. 

" These four papers are unqualifiedly good. They show a thorough acquaintance 
with the whole range of philosophic thought in its modern phases of development, even 
down to the latest involutions and convolutions of the Evolutionists, the sage unknow- 
ableness of the Agnostic, and the New Light novelty of Ethics without a conscience." — 
Lutheran Church Review. 

" These papers are as able as they are readable, and are not offensive in their spirit, 
beyond the necessary offensiveness of belief to the believing mind." — N. Y. Christian. 
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"The discussion is sprightly, incisive, and witty; and whoever begins to read it 
will be likely to read it through." — New Knglandcr. 



*** For sale by all booksellers, or sent, J>oit^aid, upon receipt o/ 
frice, by 

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743 AND 745 Broadway, New York. 



DR. McCOSH'S WORKS, 

PUBLISHED BY 

ROBERT CARTER AND BROTHERS, 

NEW YORK. 



I. 

Eleventh Thousand. 
THE METHOD OF THE DIVINE GOVERNMENT, 

Physic.vl and M011.U.. 8vo. $2.00. 

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country." — Sir William Hamilton. 

n. 

Fourth Thousand. 

TYPICAL FORMS AND SPECIAL ENDS IN CREATION. 

By James McCosh, LL.D., and Dr. Dickie. 8vo. $2.00, 

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Divine plans and works far more minutely and satisfactorily than it has 
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m. 

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1865. 

IV. 
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A DEFENCE OF FUNDAMENTAL TRUTH. Being an 
Examination of ]\Ir. J. S. Mill's Philosophy. 8vo. $2.00. 

" The spirit of these discussions is admirable. Fearless and courte- 
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a heresy wherever found." — Congregational Revieio. 



V. 

Third Edition. 

SCOTTISH PHILOSOPHY : Biographical, Expository, and 
Critical, 8vo. $4.00. 

' ' Dr. McCosh's expositions of philosophical doctrine are no less re- 
markable for their lucidity than their faiiness. Nor is his volume 
confined to the mere analysis and exhibition of speculative theories. It 
is enlivened with numerous personal details, which present the great 
names of Scotland in their domestic and social environment, and make 
its perusal as attractive as it is informing." — Tribune. 

YI. 

Eighth Thousand. 

LAWS or DISCUKSIVE THOUGHT : Being a Text-Book 
of Formal Logic. 12mo. $1.50. 

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VH. 

Sixth Thousand. 

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to the Times on Natural Theology and Apologetics. 
12mo. $1.75. 

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furnishes ready and conclusive answers to objectors and skeptics, and 
assurance to inquiring minds. It is an able and timely book. " — Baptist 
Union. 



jQ /dk».. 



PHILOSOPHIC SERIES— No. II 



ENERGY 



effioie:nt a^d final cause 



JAMES McCOSH, D.D., LL.D., D.L. 

; Author of "The Laws of Discursive Thought," "Emotions," etc. 
President of Princeton College 



NEW YORK 
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 

1SS3 



PROGRAMME OF A PHILOSOPHIC SERIES. 



For the last thirty years I have boen taking my part in the philosophic 
discussions ol! the age. I have a few things to say betore I willingly leave 
the arena. These have long occupied my tlioughts, and they relate to thrill- 
ing topios of the day, on waich mauy are anxious to have light thrown. In 
order to bnng my views before the thinking public, I start A Philosophic 
Series, to consist of small volumes of about sixty pages each, on stout paper, 
at Fifty Cents per volume, and issued quarterly, each embracing an exposi- 
tion complete in itself on one theme. 

Its aim is to defend Fundamental Truth, and to give assurance to think- 
ing minds, especially young men, in this age of unsettled opinion. It is 
opposed to Agnosticism, wuich (rather than Skepticism) is the leading philo- 
sophic heresy of the day, and is undermining some of our most precious faiths 
— intellectual, moral and religious. I have begun with the first number 
already published on 

No. I. TuE UitiTERiA. OF DIVERSE KiNDs OF Trdth. It has been 
shown again and again that we have no one absolute criterion of all truth ; 
but we have now satisfactory criteria of the various kinds of truth which we ' 
are required to believe. I have endeavored to expound and illustrate these, 
giving the tests both of self-evident and experiential or inductive truth. The 
work is addressed to intelligent enquirers, and might be used as a text-book 
on Applied Logic. I take up Cassation as the next subject in order,— 

No. II. Energy, Efficient and Final Cause. It is a fact that since 
the doctrine of the Conservation of Energy has been established, scientific 
men do not know what to make of the doctrine of Cause and Effect, and not 
a few are disposed to set aside Final Cause and the argument from design for 
the existence of God. The old doctrines are as true as ever, but they require 
to be modified and explained anciv in cornf ormity .with, recent science. This 
leads on to "^'"S' 

No. III. What Development can do and What it cannct do. — 
Religious people in the present day do not very well know what to make of 
Evolution. Some are turning it to Ihe worst of purposes, making it super- 
sede th3 power of Gjd. Surely some good may be done by explaining what 
is meant by development, which is just an organized causation which under 
God does much, but cannot do everything. 

The Series while mainly expository, will be also critical, and will embrace 

No. IV. The Agnosticism of Hume and Huxley. It has been 
shown again and again that Agnosticism is suicidal. It is an evident contra- 
diction to affirm that we know that we can know nothing. But when we have 
done all this, we have only strengthened the position of Agnosticism, which 
holds that all truth is contradictory. It is ot no use fighting with a spectre, 
but we can assail those who keep it up, such as Hume who started the sys- 
tem, and Huxley its living defender. 

No. "V. A Criticism op the PniLosoPHY of Kant— specifying its 
truths and errors. This is the most influential philo.sophy of the day, both 
in Europe and America. Kant has established a body of most important 
truth, but without meaning it, he has admitted principles which are fitted to 
undermine our knowledge and the reality of things. 

No. VI. A Criticism of Herbert Spencer's Philosophy as cul- 
minated in his Ethics, 

*;^* NOTICE. — Orders and subscriptions for the entire series will be received by 

CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS, 743 & 745 Broadway, New York. 



^ 




MUM 



